Magic Number 12
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day one hundred and eighty-two: Puck, Mike, and Matt audition for Will, to get into Glee Club.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a second cycle, and then a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eigth cycle. Which MEANS **cycle 9** is here, which MEANS... GLEE IS BACK!! YAY!_

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**"Magic Number 12"  
Puck, Mike, Matt, Will, Puck/Quinn**

Once he'd convinced Mike and Matt to join with him, the matter became preparing for an audition. It would have seemed so far out of their wheelhouse, just a bunch of football players trying to sing and dance… but it was surprisingly the opposite of that. They were not the most experienced, but they weren't starting from zero either.

Puck had assured the other two that he would take care of finding them a song. His head was in this place at that moment, thinking about Quinn, and her… their baby. He could feel that somewhere within all of this a song would come, he just had to let it. And then it came.

Then came practice. They were going to make this simple enough. It was just about getting in, but they still wanted to be good. It was a good thing none of the other guys – or Coach Tanaka for that matter – walked into the locker room while they were going over their piece, or they wouldn't have lived it down. Eventually though, they were ready.

They went in search of Mr. Schuester, finding him in his office, correcting papers. Puck went ahead and knocked on the open door. The teacher looked up and, faced with the trio of guys in letter jackets, frowned with surprise. "Yes?" he asked, clicking his pen shut.

"Mr. Schuester, we're here to audition," he spoke straightforwardly. Will's eyebrow rose, lost for words for a moment. He broke out of it, clearing his throat as he put his pen down.

"For, uh… for… Glee Club?" He paused. "Really?" The trio stepped into the office, Mike shutting the door. "I… alright, well… do you have music ready?" Puck pulled out a thin CD case and handed it to Will. He still looked uncertain as to what this was, and whether he was about to get the second verse of Puck's 'audition,' the day Ken had let Will address the football team in the locker room. If that was the case, he wasn't particularly looking forward to it. As he moved to put in the CD though, he could see the three of them take off their jackets and drop them on a nearby chair. Will had to think to himself… he'd been surprised by these kids, more than once. These three might get him as well. So he sat back to see what they had.

Puck didn't think about how ridiculous it might be, having the three of them standing there in their Spanish teacher's office, singing. All he was thinking about was going through the steps so he could get to where he needed to be. It was like he wasn't even thinking about the part where he was signing up to be in Glee Club. It was all about Quinn, and…

She didn't trust that he could be there for her. To an extent, he didn't blame her. But the idea that he could be abandoning his own child, be it voluntarily so or not, the way his father had stepped out on them as well… He hadn't planned for this, neither of them. And as much as he was all about helping her, as strong as he was being, he'd had his initial reaction, before that strength.

There was the moment where the news had been delivered to him, when he'd realized it all, one blow after the other: Quinn was pregnant. Bam! She was keeping the baby. Bam! It was his… he was going to be a father… He hadn't been scared that many times in his life, it wasn't like him… But in that moment, he could feel his age… All the fears that were running through both Finn and Quinn's minds in that time, he felt them too.

But then he'd started thinking about it, really think about it. He may have been young, but he had already been something of a father to someone – his sister. He'd grown up for her sake. Part of him was still that kid, but the other part had it in him to be there for this child, just like he was for his sister. The problem was getting Quinn to see it.

He hadn't told all of this to Mike and Matt when he'd recruited them, he couldn't. Telling them everything would have involved telling them his part in all of it, and as much as he trusted them, if it all got out, all of it, Quinn would know it came from him, and… no… they didn't need to know the real reasons. They'd said yes anyway, so now they just had to audition and get in that club.

Puck gave Mr. Schuester a nod, and the music started. If he'd had more time, he would have gone home and gotten his guitar. But he didn't, so he'd just have to stand there and sing, with the guys backing him up.

_[P] "We all carry the cross and speak what we're taught / Lies and money become the white man's god / We've burned all our bridges one too many times / The time has come now to draw the line"_

_[P, Mi/Ma] "You know you've got to / Stand, stand, stand for what you believe / You know you've got to / Stand, stand, stand for what you believe / Ohh, You got to...Stand for what you believe"_

_[P] "Alright, alright_

_Oooh You got to listen now... / Express yourself in the face of change / Repress yourself, you surely seal your fate / You got to look inside, the answer lies in wait / Resurrect before it's too late"_

_[P, Mi/Ma] "You know you've got to / Stand, stand, stand for what you believe / You know you've got to / Stand, stand, stand for what you believe / Ohh, stand...Stand for what you believe"_

Will listened to the three of them, and he smiled to himself… hidden talents… It never ceased to touch him how you couldn't tell, with so many people… you knew them as one thing but there, right under the surface, there was this whole other world you had no idea existed. He'd always found the love of music to be a very telling trait, and he was finding it here once again. He could tell there was more to it than what they were telling him, but he wasn't going to pry.

_[P] "Somebody rescue me, come down and rescue me / I know the soul of a good man has got to be free / When you stand, stand for what you believe"_

_[P, Mi/Ma] "You know you've got to / Stand, stand, stand for what you believe / You know you've got to / Stand, stand, stand for what you believe_

_You know you've got to / Stand, stand, stand for what you believe / So you've got to / Stand, stand, stand for what you believe"_

As the song ended, Will stood back up, looking at his three new members… there were twelve of them now, and it was like a weight had been lifted. Now he could take these kids and take them where they belonged.

"Congratulations, welcome to Glee Club," he told them as they put their jackets back on. "And now it's time for practice. Follow me."

Puck knew Quinn would probably need time to change her views on him, but that was just fine… he could be patient.

THE END


End file.
